Referees or Randoms?

By Danielle Jenkins  

The abilities of the Olympic ice hockey referees are being called into question after many bad calls and missing obvious rule breaks.  

Referees are no more heavily scrutinised than at the Olympics, it’s the world’s biggest stage for ice hockey, where refs can make or break a game.   

On Wednesday night, the Canadian men’s ice hockey team played against the Czech Republic, winning in overtime 4-3. However, the game was not as clean as the overtime win was.  

As any hockey fan, referee and player knows, you are only allowed five outfield players on the ice, and yet the Olympic refs seemingly forgot this.  

When the game came down to eight minutes, there was a 2-2 tie, but the Czechs broke this by creating a 3-2 lead. But before the goal, an extra teammate took to the ice, taking them from five to six outfield men.  

In any ice hockey game where there are too many players on the ice at one time there would have been a penalty, yet there was nothing. There were four officials watching this game and yet none of them spotted this obvious foul. 

The worst part? Fans noticed it immediately.  

Before post-game interviews even began the screenshots were everywhere, the extra man on ice watching and even celebrating the goal.  

Then came some blatant hypocrisy. The Czech coach called out the referees, claiming they were too scared to call anything against Canada and yet they got away with the most obvious infraction ever.  

Obvious mistakes, bad calls and possible favouritism, is leading the referees to be questioned and judged. Which they should be! If you can’t count, then can you really be a ref for the biggest ice hockey event in years?  

The Czechs now wont progress to the quarter finals due to this loss but Canada will. So now other countries are watching closely, making sure Canada fairly gets penalties called on them.